


Capricious Blooms

by ukulele_villian



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Creepy Castles, F/M, Heavy Inspiration From The Maid Of Blackford Manor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In This House We Pine And Show Love Through Promises and Glances, Jane Austen Approves. Bronte Sisters Don't Think Caleb Is Dark Enough, Jester Lavorre Fought In The War, Jester Never Met The Traveler, Magic Is Rarer, Mild Gore, Polymorph Spell, Referenced War Time Medical Drama, beauty and the beast curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 02:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20827832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ukulele_villian/pseuds/ukulele_villian
Summary: Jester Lavorre is exiled from her mother’s chateau after a run in with the influential Lord Sharpe, her step-father and long time aggressor. Desperate to find sanctuary from Sharpe--and from her past in the conflict between empire and dynasty--she takes a maid position at an estate owned by the reclusive Herr Widogast. Lonely and homesick, Jester throws herself into exploring the castle and the creatures hiding on the moor surrounding the estate.





	Capricious Blooms

\-------------------------------------------

_The First Bloom _

Jester used to watch staff in the Chateau polish the silver. 

The maids’ foreheads had wrinkled, eyes squinted till they could see their reflections. They were mostly humans, a few elves with pointy ears. Jester was the first to know when a maid slipped a spoon into their pocket. They’d look this way and that, never knowing Marquisa Lavorre’s daughter watched and judged from above. A hole in the floorboards positioned like the eye of god over the kitchens. 

As a child, Jester hadn’t understood why. The silver couldn’t be worth _ that _much. 

Now older, she could parse together a few narratives. War tended to give you stories, your own and others. 

She’d done well enough during the interview with the governess of the house--Nott, a goblin who only came up to Jester’s thigh and had an untuned way of speaking--and had avoided most of the awkward questions of her origins. The little goblin wore a porcelain half mask, fake painted red lips and rosy cheeks, that better suited the dress she wore than the face she had.

“Family ?” Miss Nott had asked. Jester had to get over staring at the small woman’s large ears. Jester wondered if Miss Nott had ever lived with the Krynn.

_ But that would be impossible. _

“They live on the coast.” Jester had answered. Plain, simple, as basic as a blue skinned girl with horns could be. It made her feel better that Nott was a goblin, at least. 

“That’s sweet.” Miss Nott had nodded a few times, clearly pretending to read Jester application more thoroughly than she actually was. “You’ll get used to the rain, and the wind, and all the darkness. I promise it’s sorta-” Nott had then shown Jester to her room that first night. “--_ nice, _ you know, in a _ nostalgic _way. Old Zemnian traditions and such. “

_ Nostalgic for zombies, maybe. _Jester had smiled politely at Nott’s description. She’d almost blurted out her thoughts, almost but not quite. 

Herr Widogast’s home was a mansion in size, but in style it was closer to an abandoned ruin. Jester had been promised that the war hadn’t reached this far north, and yet the house seemed weary and decrepit. Dust, moth eaten holes in everything, and a distinct amount of draped, narrow windows. 

Outside wasn’t an improvement. Jester had lost her shawl exiting from the carriage; a gust swept it up into a wind bent tree. A bad omen. 

Thus, began her new life. Gnarled trees, lost shawls, and a promise that normalcy would arrive once she became complacent. 

Miss Nott hadn’t asked her to polish the silver, in fact the governess hadn’t asked Jester to do _ anything_. A day of Jester standing around had her missing the books she’d left back home. Jester was the only maid. Someone _ should _do it. At least she could make faces in the reflections of the spoons, fight the boredom off. Her horns distorted in the silver circle. She opened her mouth to look at her canines, twisting her tongue around childishly, blowing raspberries. 

Her small laughter echoed in the house. Empty and alone.

The dining room had a long serving table, seating for fifty guests in plush backed chairs. It was the kind of room where the lord would sit at the head, his advisers to the left and right at the front most chairs. There would be dishes with roasted animals, a few men discussing the cavalry efforts and men dead on the battlefield. Talk of the Krynn's fall would dominate every conversation. 

The table was present, so was a crest at the fireplace mantel. 

Jester waved a large spoon about, making it into a baton, “Yes, I will have fifteen roasted pigs, seven lambs, and a whale for dinner.” She draped a curl of her hair over her lip to imitate a mustache. 

These were shadows of grandiose lives, like all the riches _ had _been here. Jester wrinkled her nose at the crest on Herr Widogasts mantel: a faded griffin with a red bird sitting on its head. Lord Sharpe had something similar in his office back in Nicodranus. 

Jester had hated that crest, memorized it so she could mentally burn holes into it when it began flying over every store front--even in front of the Chateau. 

_ My home. _

If her mother were here she’d smile with her lips pressed together, telling Jester to play along. 

_ M’row ? _

Jester startled, the serving spoon spun out of her hand and under the table. She dropped to a crouch to get it, knocked her rams horns into the corner edge, and cursed while holding her forehead. 

A furry creature a few feet ahead of her, under a dining chair, swished its tail.

Jester giggled, her own tail, long and with a heart barb at the end, was stuffed into the white petticoat of her dress. 

“Hi ! have you been listening to me talk to myself ?” Jester grinned. Miss Nott had introduced the castle mouser to Jester already. A beloved Bengal cat named Frumpkin. The house had statues of lions in the front courtyard; the hedges had the vague shape of having once been panthers, there was a half finished wall paper job in one room that had small cats chasing yarn on it. “I bet I look pretty stupid to you.”

Except this was not the same cat as Frumpkin. This one was lithe, and more, well more orange overall. The new cat blinked at her a few times, a weird sentience behind it. Cats were all judgmental in their own way. 

“Don’t tell anyone I scuffed the table with my horns, promise ?” Jester rubbed her head again, and started to move away from the eerie thing. She knocked the rest of the silverware case as well. 

“Shit ! Balls !” Jester scooped up miss-matched cutlery, throwing them haphazardly into their case. She covered her mouth too, she'd caught swearing from soldiers and sailors and never quite shook it off. The cat darted across the length of the table and back through a door. 

Jester latched the container, squeezing the lid as it refused to seal without lumps and distortions to the leather. That was enough for today. 

When she was leaving, grumbling to herself and wiping dust off her uniform, she noticed a flower laid carefully at the head of the table. It’s blue stuck out against the browns of the room.

It was like her. 

\----------------------------------------------

_A Humbled Bird of Prey_

“Are there any ghosts in _ Blumenthal _?” Jester joked. She wiggled the fingers on her free hand; her other hand occupied by twirling the blue flower. The stem was as long as the length of her palm, the flower only being a little bigger than the width of her thumb. 

“No...” Miss Nott was still cautious around Jester. Her employer would pause after making a suggestion on how to clean, clearly uncertain about the dynamics of their relationship. It was easy to see the goblin was used to being teased, and unused to authority roles. The evidence was in the hunched shoulders and awkward chuckles that Jester recognized from watching boy soldiers in misfitting uniforms. “It’s me and Herr Widogast. And now you.”

That was Miss Nott, ever the vague and shy creature. Miss Nott shoveled stiff gruel into her mouth, according to the quaint goblin she’d let it simmer for a few hours to get it soft and savory. It was thicker than mud to Jester, and as traditional as oatmeal. Jester could kill for spice in their food: peppers, yellow turmerics, _ color_. She missed the fruits of the coast, the ocean, the warmth.

She did not miss the battle tents, the boats fitted with too many cannons, and Robert Sharpe. If there was a way to amputate their taint from the goodness of her home’s memory she would.

“Thank you for washing out the tubs on the second floor by the way,” Miss Nott wiped her mouth with her sleeve. Jester held her tongue, nearly about to make a joke about a governess and her lack of manners. “Never been too fond of that well outback, there are spider nests everywhere !” 

“Yeah,” Jester still had bites all across her knuckles. “We should get someone down the hill to install a pump.”

“That would be nice.” Nott said in the way someone uses filler words to continue a dead end conversation. They were circling around the same platitudes in safety. “I- You said you used to paint ?” Nott gave her a toothy grin--an infrequent sight because of the mask--the smile of someone trying to not have the only sound at dinner be her sloppy eating.

“Yes ! I was classically trained.” _ Was _ being the key word. Another part of the world cast in Lord Sharpe’s shadow. She was shocked that Nott had read _ any _of her application. 

“There’s a wonderful portrait of-” Nott stopped herself. She'd done this a few times, nearly called him by his first name. Did she expect Jester to report her ? Was she that close to the owner of the house ?

She had to be. Miss Nott hadn’t even let the carriage driver any closer to _ Blumenthal _ than the gate.

“When do I get to meet Herr Widogast ?” Jester had asked this same question during her interview. Widogast, Widogast, Widogast: it sounded like a better name for the house than _ Blumenthal _. 

_ Blumenthal _sounded soft and rounded by easy consonants. 

_Widogast_ could be a cold gust in a soot laden fireplace. 

“He’s a little lost in his own ways. Suffers from Scribes Fever and doesn’t come out too often. You know how the book types can get.” Nott’s eyes flickered with rapid glances away from Jester, looking at her own hands pinched together. 

Jester hadn’t fought Goblins in the ensuring calamity that had been the invasion of Nicodranus, she had instead cured the men who had. 

“I’m going to have to clean his room eventually.” 

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll take his side of the house and you can do the other.” Nott began picking up their bowls, filling the kitchen with enough clatter to not allow there to be anymore questions. “Have I ever told you how pretty you look ? When I was small, I was told tieflings could only see movement, is that true ?”

Jester held her tongue, wanting to comment that Nott was_ still _ very small. 

In the night Jester lay awake afterwards in her room, twirling the flower between her index and thumb. How long had it been raining ? Would it ever stop ? Would Jester’s mama come for her when it did ?

She could see the sunlit terrace of her home: humans, elves, more humans. Lots of humans. No horns like hers. 

_ A tiefling ? Here ? Yes, get used to it. _

A crack of lightning and thunder made the house shudder, stealing Jester’s visions of tropical weather. If she were lucky the roof would fly off and she’d be sucked into space.

_Stuck, stuck, stuck. _

_ Tap, tap, tap. _

Another flash of lightning cast a shadow at her window. The silhouette unmistakable for a person. 

She scrambled for the oil lamp, enough in it to set an insular warm glow in her room. On the other side of the dark glass window was a bird.

Not a songbird, or a small sparrow. An eagle of great size tapped on her window, gently asking to be let in. 

She laughed, her nerves chastising her, and the sound echoed in the four walls of her room alongside the sound of the rain. Nott hopefully hadn’t heard her. 

The bird tapped at the window again, this time desperate. A proud creature reduced to begging for help. She turned over on her side, she wasn’t going to let a bird into the house. 

_Tap tap tap. _

It’s tapping increased in urgency. Jester held her breath. She counted to three, her will and cruelty wasn’t that strong. Jester slipped from bed and ran to open the latch--the wind doing the rest of the work. Hellish rain and wings crashed into her amour. She gripped the side of the window with both her hands, her elbow to the frame. It was like taking a running start into the wall to get it closed. 

_ Tap tap tap. _

Jester slid to the floor, back against the wall, exhausted. Her room was effectively filled with brown and white feathers, and the eagle scratching its claws across the floors. At least the lamp was still lit.

_ Now what ? _

A dark trail of something was pooling at the eagle’s wing. The iron smell of blood had Jester covering her mouth, why had she done this again ? 

_ ‘I wanted to help it’ _didn’t seem sufficient enough to explain the three clawed lined in the wallpaper. Nott might fire her, all for an eagle.

“Ah, hello. Hello, eagle-” It took to flapping it wings aggressively and going towards the door of her bedroom. “Shit, shit, shit.” She moved around the bird of prey to get to her bed. “Sorry, not letting you out till tomorrow, Mr. Bird.”

The creature ignored Jester, with it’s long wingspan it threw itself further at her door. 

“No, no, jeez.” Jester reached into her dresser for a scarf, something to clean up the blood seeping into the floorboards. She looked down at her hands, reddish brown drying into the creases of her blue palms. Her white nightgown looked frightening, familiar, the white showing off the gore. 

The party and Robert Sharpe’s blood on her hands. She’d never acted before--only had the thought in the back of her mind, pushed aside as a bad fantasy. The men in the tent needed healing and she could heal them. Terrible thoughts weren’t becoming of a healer, were they ?

Her knees hit the floor, feathers and blood sticking to her dress and legs. Jester’s hands came to her forehead and her chin to her chest. She hadn’t let herself cry after she said goodbye, if she had her mother would have too. 

Jester shivered as she felt something bump into her shoulder. The eagle, still injured, leaned against her. She made a sound of confusion, and the bird pecked her. It was a painful show of affection that only a gigantic bird could give.

Up close, with the shadows still cast by the lantern, Jester could make out the white speckles on its dark feathers. A hawk in color and an eagle in size, it was beautiful enough to make her glad she let it in. 

She could have sworn it looked back at her, knowingly and grateful. 

\-------------------------------

_A Portrait _

“Do you drink at all ? Brandy ? Ale ? Booze ?” Nott asked her, and Jester blinked awake. She’d dozed off for a second, still holding the rag in her hand to clean the mirror in front of her. She caught a look again at her own reflection and almost stuck her tongue out at the wilting and tired tiefling that stared back at her. 

“Hm ?” Jester had been nodding along to Nott’s talk, and nodding off with each new chore. She’d sometimes catch a glimpse of dried blood under her fingernails and shiver. She’d fallen asleep on the floor at some point as the sun had risen and her eyes had closed, the eagle nestled in her arm. 

“Do you like wine ? You look like a wine drinker.” Nott’s porcelain mask covered her long needle teeth. Jester preferred the teeth to the motionless red lips. 

“No, I’m dry.” Jester ran a cloth over one of the windows. Soldiers drank too much and Robert Sharpe had gone to the cellars of the Chateau before he’d even strung up his gaudy flag.

That morning, Jester had woken up alone. There’d been no feathers, no eagle; nothing but faint splotches of blood here and there around her room. In the washroom she scrubbed furiously at her face and hands, too much blood. She’d watched the brownish water accumulate in the basin and then quickly dumped it out the window. It must have been a bad dream, to be sure she examined her entire body in the mirror. At her shoulder was a few indentations, evidence of an affectionate peck. Uniform on and her denial stronger than ever, she’d opened her bedroom door cautiously, holding her breath. 

On the floor of the carpet had been a bloody footprint. Human. 

“At dinner we should celebrate, you’ve been here for a whole week.” Nott swished a feather duster around a vase with ceramic pawed feet on its sides, sending dust into the air before it settled back down onto the porcelain ornament. 

It had to have been more than a week, but how could she tell when the sun was blotted out by the rain ? That would mean- 

_ I’ve forgotten already ! _

“There’s a cellar under the house. I’ll open a port, one of the really old ones. That’s how you know it’s fancy.” Nott said, making her way further down the hall. She was far away enough from Jester that her voice sounded faint. “It all starts to taste the same to me. Moonshine and hoity toity stuff-”

Jester blinked a few times, she’d only been this tired once in her life. Then, leaning over a woman in a cot who’d fallen asleep as Jester had taken to stoppering the blood flowing with nothing but her hands.

Jester lifted her head after a good stare at the carpet, little lions dotted the patterned edges and blurred into one ball. She could hear Sharpe’s voice, not far from her or her mother’s memory.

_ Is your daughter usually this emotional ? _

“Jester ?” Nott turned back around the corner as Jester turned away from her. “Everything okay, J-Jessie ?”

“Yeah, it’s nothing,” She started to turn away, and flinched when Nott’s pitter-patter of feet ran up to take her hand. The little goblin didn’t wear shoes. 

“I don’t think it’s nothing.” Nott took Jester’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. 

“I- I’m being super bratty. I’m just so tired and I realized I forgot my mama’s birthday today.” Before she’d left, Sharpe had asked if her this was what she’d intended. He’d gloated about how much she was hurting her mother, again, and again, and again. 

“Uh-” Nott stroked her hand awkwardly. “Then it’s the perfect time to drink !”

They didn’t eat in the lower servants quarters like they’d had for the last week. Jester had her suspicions that Nott hadn’t eaten there till Jester’s arrival; the goblin didn’t know where the utensils were and frequently forgot about the glasses. 

Instead, they were in the dining hall, the one where Jester had polished the silver. It was her second time in this room, and its flaws were even more so apparent.

“Where are the animal heads, or the pictures ?” Jester asked, as Nott poured her a small glass from a crystal decanter. The goblin then took a deep swig straight from the decanter, much to Jester’s confusion.

“Are you drunk already ?” Nott sota burped through the last word, confused by Jester’s remark.

“You can tell there used to be plaques in here, or like animal head trophies. The wall paper looks sorta faded in spots, then there are those shapes where the wallpaper is darker. It’s like there used to be lots of things hung up. Weird, right ?” When Jester had been no more than five she’d counted all of the windows in the Chateau. Her mind picking up on all the strange and odd things around her from sheer boredom. 

Nott’s eyes bulged a bit as Jester explained what she’d noticed. The goblin downed the entire decanter, and got up from her chair, swaying before putting her hands on her hips triumphantly.

“Well look at that ! We’re all out of booze, aren’t we !” Nott teetered to a liquor cabinet and began to select a different decanter. 

“Nott,” Jester noticed her shoulders hunch. It was clear, yet again, Nott had been dodging topics with her. “Nott, where’s Herr Widogast ?” It was the type of question not punctured properly, her weariness and frustration made it into a demand.

“Out and about, you know-”

“_No, _ I don’t _ know _!” 

A dreadful silence filled the room. This was definitely where she got fired. Governesses didn’t tolerate yelling or refusals in etiquette. Sharpe had sent staff packing over smaller offenses as raising their voice. 

Nott paused, bunching her hands into the skirt hem of her dress, “Please don’t quit.”

Jester stuttered and almost laughed. This woman was supposed to be her boss. Miss Nott had given Jester a position in an esteemed house, skimming the holes in Jester’s background and qualifications. Guilt flooded her as quickly as the crazed laughter had. “Miss Nott, I’m not going to leave.”

“I don’t know what we’ll do if you quit.” Nott looked serious in the face of Jester’s disbelief.

“You’ll find another person to fill my job, duh ? You guys pay well and let me live her for practically free.” It was weird speaking so freely to her. 

Nott’s mask hung around her neck as she started biting her fingers, her claws and teeth mashing together, “It’s mostly my fault. A little of Caleb’s, mostly mine. My teeth don’t fly well with new hires.”

“Whose Caleb ?”

“Ah, shit.”

Jester gaped, a governess wasn’t supposed to be informal. She’d assumed Miss Nott was--as her mother would describe--avant garde. A few strange royals came to the Chateau now and then, the other guests had to be sequestered from them and their boisterousness. They were too witty and charming to not be offending others, and they never lasted long in the Empire. 

The war had them fleeing to better climates. Till the war found them anyway. 

Jester leaned close to Miss Nott, conspiratorial in her tone, “I promise not to quit.” Nott looked relieved beyond belief; her green, large ears went from standing up right, to a relaxed droop. “_Buuut, _ you have to answer a few of my questions. Because I’m totally starting to think you killed Herr Widogast or like-”

“I would never hurt him !” 

“You didn’t chop him up into little bits and serve him to us in the soup ?”

Nott narrowed her eyes, “Are you making fun of me ?”

Jester winked, feeling her old self shine through. This was the person she liked to be: coy, flirty, fun. This was better than being weepy and melodramatic, like the house had seeped into her. 

“Fine, I guess I owe you a little honesty. You did polish all of that silver…”

Jester laughed and hoped Nott hadn’t seen that she’d thrown the lot of it back into whatever compartment was open, “Yeah, please tell me you aren’t secretly a hobo who killed the last guy who lived here.”

Nott folded her hands together and murmured something about being thankful to be drunk before beginning her explanation, “Herr Widogast--Caleb--he’s, well, he’s not well.”

“He’s crazy ?”

“It’s real touch and go with him-- I mean, _ no _ he’s not _ crazy. _ He’s _ brilliant_, I promise_. _He’s just not a big fan of people these days. We’ve worked on it in small bits. He had a bad experience with the villagers, superstitious bunch. Worse than me even...And I’m disgusting looking, usually rocks are the response I get.“ 

Jester’s mouth fell into an ‘o’ shape. She instinctively touched one of her horns. “You’re not ugly.”

Nott shook her head sadly at Jester, the way a mother lectured a child.

“Oh, there I go rambling again. Oversharing as always. Caleb is wonderful. He helped me out of a tough time.” Nott changed the subject quickly. 

“He’s afraid of leaving the house ?” Jester failed in an attempt to ask innocently. She could piece together frames of her childhood and her mother as a fixture of the Chateau, terrified of a world that didn’t have the safety of her four walls. She’d hug Jester tightly to her chest after she’d come home from the medic tents, cooing and crying. “I kinda know what you mean.”

Nott’s eyes couldn’t meet Jester’s. This wasn’t the entire story. “I used to deliver food to the house. He invited me to stay and I didn’t have much else. I help him as best I can...with his illness.”

“Is it Consumption ?”

Nott shook her head, “Nope, much worse--uh, Scribes Fever.”

That was the second time Nott had used the fake illness. To Jester’s advantage, Nott would never guess she had been a nurse. 

“And you hired me because ?” Jester let the last word trail. She was shocked Nott had told her this much, it was clear the little goblin had been needing to vent for a while. 

“Well, I for one am bored out of my mind in this place.” Nott leaned across the table to reach the second decanter she’d taken from the cabinet. She lazily poured herself another drink and then finished off the rest. “And you’re the only one who answered the advert. So, here we are !” 

The goblin drank deeply till Jester had to carry her to her quarters. Mumbling into Jester’s shoulder about nonsense things, rhymes including halflings and witches in the woods. Before Jester closed Nott’s door she heard Nott mumble a messy phrase. 

It might have been a ‘goodnight’. 

On her way back to her room, Jester paused at the door. Nott was asleep, she wouldn’t notice Jester making a slight detour towards the side of the house unexplored, the side where Nott had promised to clean Caleb’s room. 

Jester made her way left of the staircase, down a few halls till the carpet started looking different and the wall paper scratched and torn in places. She had a feeling she was going the right way, a bloody paw print--not human--larger than Jester’s fist, dotted the floor in front of a smaller auburn door. 

“Frumpkin ?” _ Too big. _

His bedroom was of course locked. To the left was the first portrait she’d seen in the home. It was traditional, faded, safe brush strokes and expressions purposefully bland enough to be regal. A young man sat in a chair, red hair that went past his ears. The face was almost sweet, large blue eyes, with thick eyebrows, and a tiny divet in his chin. At the boy’s side stood an older man whose hand rested on his shoulder. No, not resting, squeezing. The painter hadn’t been able to soften the ringed hand’s grasp.

Maybe it had been done on purpose. 

\------------------------------

_Identity _ _Masquerades_

Jester didn’t directly pester Nott after that. The little goblin had woken up the next day, apologetic and begging Jester to not quit, and to not spread the rumors of what she’d been told.

Who was there to tell ? Jester kept that bit to herself. There was no sign of any more strange animals, despite the appearance of more flowers. The same blue flower, left every so often on a dresser, desk, or windowsill she was cleaning. 

There was the sensation that Nott couldn’t explain everything, even if she wanted to. It was obvious enough the connection between Herr Widogast, who Nott affectionately called Caleb, and the boy in the painting. 

He was real. Nott hadn’t lied about that. 

Jester kept her head down, till she awoke late on a Thursday afternoon. She’d run out of her bedroom, frustrated and confused why Nott hadn’t woken her up. Her foot bumped into two sheets of paper before she could yell down the stairs her apologies. 

The first piece of paper was hastily scrawled on, a messy chicken scratch that read, “_ Getting food for next Friday. We are having someone come by. Breakfast downstairs for you. Take the day off. There might be paints in the library.” _

Nott had drawn a heart and doodle of a smiling face. The next letter was more official, the writing looped in a refined and personal cursive. 

_ “Thank you for taking care of Nott. She’ll never admit it, she needs people to lean into. Please help her clean out the library for next week’s guest if you can. If you want there are things in the library to use for correspondence with your family. If you like, Nott and I can send it posthaste.” _

This letter was not signed. 

_ ‘If you can’, ‘if you like’, ‘if you want’. _

Robert Sharpe, who by all purposes could be lower on the totem than Herr Widogast, never talked like that. The nurses who’d overseen the medic tent hadn’t been as accommodating. 

Clearly it was Nott _ and _Caleb who didn’t understand how to be in charge. 

\----------------

_ A Second Bloom_

Jester had to use both hands to push open the oaken doors to the library. Carved into the wood was more images of cats and animals. 

For once, no dust when she entered the room. She was greeted by--

“Holy shit, shit, shit,” It was fairy tale like in nature, and more cluttered than a mail room. The stacks of books, alongside scaling shelves, gave the sensation that the roof had to be raised to accommodate all the texts. To Jester’s delight there was a ladder fixture on one of the shelves that had wheels. “There’s no way Nott and I are gonna be able to clean this.”

_ There I go talking to myself again. _Some of the other nurses in the medic tent had taken to calling her ‘The Jester in The Box’ for her mannerisms. “Here I go, armed with my feather duster of evil.”

Jester wondered why the sudden arrival of a guest, perhaps she’d been the first step in helping them overcome their seclusion. The thought was a comfort. 

She started with the first table closest to the door, “The little sapphire, best commander ever, alone in enemy territory, scales the highest bookcases. Will she vanquish all this mess, or fall to her doom ?”

In mock show she took eight books in hand, blocking her peripheral vision and pretending to sway to and fro. 

She’d done this for much of her childhood. Her room was a fortress, a forest, a castle, a maze. And she was fearless, saving her mama, saving a friend she’d named and made up in her head. 

It was why she’d applied for the medic tent job.

And yet the blood couldn’t be washed from her hands. 

She shook the thought, and remembered where she’d left off the daydream. “Commander Lavorre picks up a book ! It’s a big book ! And it’s about-”

The title read, _ The Manor and The Little Maid. _

“Commander Lavorre pockets this smutty book for safekeeping !”

“You don’t have to hide it-” A voice behind her said and Jester shrieked on instinct, throwing the book behind. It made contact with the person’s face, who was now holding both his hands up apologetically. “Pardon- 

The man held his nose, pinching it to keep blood from flowing. He was taller than Jester by a foot, was human, and had red hair that went past his ears. He looked like a tree branch had become a man; and then become a librarian; and then transformed back into the branch so that a carver could bend and hunch his shoulders. The carver had gotten him in just the right frame to make him fit in with the rest of the wilting house. 

“Herr Widogast ?” _ It can’t be. All this build up and he looks--_normal_. _

“Correct, that would be me.” He rubbed at one of his arms, and cleared his throat. His voice was quiet, low and accented with the usual Zemnian flair that favored glottal sounds_. _He couldn't have been older than Jester.“I assume you are Nott’s new assistant, Frau Vasilev ?”

Her stomach dropped, she’d completely forgotten which fake last name she’d used on her application, “Yeah, uh yes. That’s me--Miss Jester Vasilly.”

“Is- Is that how it is pronounced in Nicodranus ?”

“Yeah--gosh--it’s like, Smith and Joe Human. Super common. I had like, sixteen friends and all of their names were Vasilly.” _ Shit, shit, shit- _

Herr Widogast nodded, lowering his eyes to the floor. He noticed the book Jester had thrown at him, and dusted off the jacket before holding it out for her to take. There was something almost mechanical in his movements, if he weren’t a noble she’d assume he was as nervous as she was. Jester knew little about the pantheon of gods, she could imagine they were sitting on their thrones somewhere having a grand time watching her flail through life. 

“Nott said you are trained as a painter ?” He still had the book outstretched, waiting for her to take it. The glaringly obvious title peaked out under his fingers. She nodded at him and quickly took the book, stuffing it under her arm in a way she hoped seemed casual. “I believe there are materials--somewhere, ah, I admit I find new things in this place the more time I spend here. It hasn’t been cleaned since I acquired the home.”

“You didn’t grow up here ?” Jester thought of the painting of young Herr Widogast, probably still called ‘Cayleb', next to the domineering older figure. 

He paused, shook his head at her. She filed that into the many mysteries of the house. 

Jester nodded again. She waited for him to leave, but he seemed to be mustering up the courage to say something more. 

He finally cleared his throat again and pointed to the pile of books at the table she’d been next to, “I would like to help you clean out this room, for next Friday I mean. I think this is too much for only two people. Nott will return and then we will have three people to help.” 

He laid it out like he was measuring each word.

“No, I was just messing around a bit before, uh, getting to work. You don’t need to help, you're sick anyway.” She said it as bluntly as she could, thinking that would get him to go away. 

He blinked back in confusion, then shook his head and started to pick up the clutter, “It was rude of me to not introduce myself sooner.”

_ Guess I won’t be using the ladder to swing around from shelf to shelf… _

“You don’t have to worry ! Nott said you were dying- or suffering from nerves. There was, tons and tons of animals running all around the house. I expected you to be covered in them when we first met.” She clamped her mouth shut. It was lucky that he hadn’t been the one to interview her. “You must have been here the whole time in your book kingdom.” She used small amounts of damage control to ease the furrowed look he had.

She felt silly for her superstitions, except the man looked almost spooked by her comment. He quickly began to pick up clutter and fill the silence. 

“Nott’s been very complimentary of you.” He said tersely in response. He could shelf faster than Jester, so she started handing him books, watching him place each back onto an empty space she hadn’t seen before. For the first five minutes Jester held her breath, waiting for the inevitable where he’d yell at her or say something boorish. “I wasn’t feeling much to leaving my room for the last few days.”

He remained quiet after that, and when she cautiously handed him a broom to get cobwebs off the ceiling, he took it from her, climbed the bookshelf ladder, and did as she asked. Jester knew illness and disease acutely, Herr Widogast showed no signs. He was lanky, for sure, maybe hadn’t eaten enough in his life. An odd thing for someone living in a mansion. 

_ Weird. _

“I’m sorry I threw a book at you,” Jester broke the silence after she thought she couldn’t take it anymore. “You _ did _ scare me--which is really rude-- I’m sorry anyway.”

“Nott must be rubbing off on me. She has a knack for sneaking room to room.” He’d started to sit crossed legged on the floor, rolling up maps and scrolls to be put back into water proof cylinders. 

_ Marquisa Lavorre, your daughter mustn’t sit on the floor. Marquisa Lavorre your daughter acts more like an animal than a child- _

It was the subtlest of transformations, the small action of sitting on the floor. Herr Widogast sounded stupid anyway. She lowered herself to sit next to Caleb. He noticed this and didn’t respond, and instead unrolled a map next to her to examine it so he could file it in an alphabetical tube. 

Jester wished she hadn’t leaned over to look. 

Her chest constricted. The map was from when the Clovis Concord reigned over Nicodranus. The coastal waves had illustrations of sea creatures lurking half beneath waves. She’d had a similar map over her bed, and used to run her fingers along the paper. 

_ She can smell the tent most of all. It’s all close enough to touch. There’s blood and limbs and- _

“Frau Vasiliev ?”

Jester looked on, not responding. Who was he talking to again ?

Caleb looked to her, worried. Why was he worried ?

_ Oh, oh shit- _

“How’s your nose ?” She sliced at the silence and memory, fighting back with everything she could to stay cheerful. It was a stupid dusty map. How could something so small stab and wound ?

Caleb squinted at her and shifted his face to a neutral expression, “Fine, thank you. You left. I recognized that manic look.”

“Left ?” She smiled, smiled in the exact way she’d seen her mother the day Robert Sharpe proposed. A smile strong enough to fool anyone. 

Jester saw him narrow his eyes at her skeptically and in that moment, she hated him. 

She picked up another map and rolled it up dismissively. 

Caleb sat staring at his hands, still holding her home, “Did I offend ?”

_ No, you wouldn’t let me hide. _

“Of course not !” She’d say it to her mother, she’d say it to Lord Sharpe, she’d say it to the other girls in the medic tent. It was wrong to be this sad over seeing a map of before. It was wrong to feel bitter over small things that anyone could withstand. “I’m fine, Herr Widogast.”

He could not meet her eyes, “If you need to contact your family there are writing materials in the desk by the window.”

"Thank you..."

They filed the maps away. Silent again. When the clock struck six, Caleb’s attention flew to the hour hand and he quickly stood to brush off the dust from his trousers. They’d been sitting together for enough time that Jester’s legs had gone stiff. 

“It was nice to meet you, forgive me again for the delay in appearance.” He spat out the quick platitude and hurried away past a shelf. The clock had scared him away. 

It left Jester to mull over the entire strange interaction. She’d spent the entire day with a man who’d been a ghost up until then. 

“The door is the other way, dummy…” Jester muttered under her breath. She’d done enough embarrassing herself for a lifetime. He did not walk back though, she waited. 

He still did not appear to walk back through the door.

“Okay, Caleb,” She risked using his first name. “Very funny-”

There was no one around the corner, only a shelf of books. In the alcove by the window sat the desk he’d mentioned. There was the book she’d thrown at him earlier, with paper, ink, and a quill on top of the cover. 

Another blue flower rested on the desk as well.

\-------------------------------------------------------

_Unwanted Correspondence_

“Jester ! Jester !” Nott waved the letter in the air, Jester barley registered what was going on. She’d had dreams again. Always the dreams. “There’s mail for you.”

Jester’s fingers twitched, that was impossible. She hadn’t sent anything to her mother yet, unless- No, it can’t be and it isn’t, she thought. 

It was: the letter had his red seal on it. The envelope was lined with a water resistant coating, to show that the writer was wealthy enough to do such a thing, and to ensure that what was written wasn’t lost or mistranslated. 

Jester lunged for the letter, Nott making a scoffing sound when she reached it.

“Geez, slow down, did you win something ?” 

Jester’s eyes ran over the letter hungrily. 

He had addressed Jester by her first name in the letter, a familiarity they didn’t have. To call her by her last name might imply that she had some relation to the woman he’d married. She’d always been ‘the daughter’. Her mama had hated him too, had tried casting him out subtly. That’s what Jester had told herself, had whispered as a mantra over and over again. 

War was terrible and confusing from the smallest medic tent, to the biggest Chateau of royals. 

“Junk mail ?” Nott asked innocently. 

Jester folded it into her apron, the edge of the letter snagging on the hem. She felt a childish rage rise as she shoved it further down into the edges of her mind and dress pocket. 

“Yeah, junk mail.”

Nott tried to get her talking while they cleaned out more of the library. Jester hummed in response. A simple yes and no here and there without words behind it.

“How about you get some fresh air ?” It was Nott’s way of telling Jester that she was being weird. Jester practically ran out of the house. 

When Jester was sure she was far enough away from the house she grabbed her apron and screamed into it. A stone a few feet ahead of her found its way into her hand, and then into a tree from her throwing it; She knew she looked wild, the exact image of the devil they painted her as. 

If Lord Sharpe would gloat about casting her out from civility into the wild, then Jester would enjoy it. 

If only for five minutes of yelling and crying she could be hellish and horrible. 

And then she was her again. When whacking branches angrily against a tree’s trunk, or smashing the letter into marsh, was no longer powerful; it became pathetic. Jester sat with her knees to her forehead and arms around herself, wanting to wake up back in her world where she’d never had to prove herself to her mama. Jester sat till the day turned blue, the sun starting to fade into the sky and the air getting crisp. The air started to have the dewy feeling of an incoming fog. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and thumbed the mud on her petticoat. There was still hope that on her walk back, her face would clear of its signs of crying. 

Except the trees looked eerily similar. She walked forwards with confidence at first, expecting to catch sight of the houses roof. She stopped, then turned around and walked the other direction. 

_Who would care if you got lost in the woods ? _

“Mama would care !” Jester fumed to herself. It didn’t feel good hearing her voice echo in the wooded area. “Nott might care about me too !”

The entire day she’d avoided the little goblin. Guilt was a familiar feeling these days for Jester. 

_ Maybe another cry would be good. _

She grabbed a fallen branch off the ground, rubbing the dirt off. As a child she’d once walked around the Chateau wielding a fire poker, her mother smiling at her daughter’s sweet performance. 

“_Are you here to keep me safe, my little sapphire ? _” Her mother had asked her, few got to see Marion Lavorre’s wicked grin. Her mother’s horns at been gigantic, large enough to hold jewels and tassels across them. 

Jester squeezed the branch, a makeshift weapon. Tieflings historically had better sight in the dark, she would be fine. She would find _ Blumenthal, _and Nott would laugh at her, and Jester would apologize for how she acted. 

_ This is fine. _

But the sky kept darkening. 

She heard a snap, something walking unafraid in the darkness of the woods. The glowing eyes, a short and minuscule distance ahead, had Jester cursing under her breath. Jester held the branch in front of her body, wishing at that moment she’d grabbed a bigger weapon. 

“Yeah, this is fantastic.” Jester mumbled. “Fucking fantastic.”

Whatever it was (wolf, demon, monster, devil) would be in for a surprise. She was stupidly tired, angry, and had enough energy left in her to at least bash its head in before it ripped her throat out. 

“Miss- Miss Lavorre ?” Not a creature’s roar, but a confused and accented voice called out. 

“Herr Widogast ?”

“Yes ?” He stumbled forward, mud staining the cuffs of his shirt. “I’m- I’m over here !”

She laughed at him tripping over to her. Her panic faded and she felt her pulse return to a normal rate.

“You here to rescue me ?” Jester caught him as he fell forward. He looked towards her and she caught his face go red. She couldn’t stop laughing. It was a combination of hysterical relief and genuine humor at this bumbling nerd who she’d mistaken for a creature lurking in the woods. 

“You didn’t come back for dinner…”

“I was busy, you know, exploring the woods. Just like, getting in touch with nature. I was gonna come back eventually.” Jester was glad he couldn’t see her face in the dark. 

Caleb plucked a twig from her hair, “Find anything of interest ?”

“Nothing really, you’d hope with all these trees at least one of them would grow.” He held out his hand to her, and without asking how he’d found her or stumbled so deep into the night without his vision intact, Jester took it. “I tried looking for those flowers that get dropped around the house.”

“Ah, those flowers.” He nodded his head and didn’t elaborate. Jester became aware of his determined path, he tripped again on the way, but remained on the same course. 

He knew exactly the way to the house.

“Did _ you _ find anything interesting in the woods ?” She teased to throw him off somehow, confused about how he knew the path back so intimately, but paled when he lifted a crumbled paper out of his coat pocket. “What’s that ?” 

“Nott really did skim through your interview.”

“The painting part isn’t a lie…” They were still holding hands in the dark. He was essentially calling her out for her poorly cobbled lies that had piled high. He didn’t seem angry, though. 

It was oddly, calm and accepting. 

“This Sharpe man, he sounds like he doesn’t know how to take a joke.”

Jester sputtered and burst into a cackle, “That’s what I yelled at him before he started screaming at me to get out of _ his _ house.”

“And now he blames you for the wedding falling through.” 

“Yep, and for showing the whole world he’s a fraud; and that he’s evil; and that he’s a coward; and a liar. Also, his dick was ugly.” 

Caleb paused, he was smiling; cautiously, but still smiling. “What did he mean when he wrote about the war following you ?” 

“I’ll tell you if you tell me something first.” She pushed and was shocked when he conceded with an eye roll. “Why don’t you and Nott act fancy, schmancy bougies ?” 

“I don’t know what that last word means...”

“You’re supposed to be a prince, except you’re crumbly and you hide in your house. Also Nott’s sweet and cute, but she would never last in anyone’s court because she burps really loud after drinking an entire bottle of wine.” She was as good as fired after what he’d read in Sharpe’s letter, subtlety was dead and Jester would help in the murder. 

“I- I’m not a prince.” He sounds slightly bemused. “I inherited the house from- I received the house from my mentor.”

“Your dad ?”

“No, my mentor.” He said mentor with a fierce annunciation of the word. No room for mistaking what that relationship was. “Nott and I are--” he moved his free hand in a way one looked for a word to grab from the air. “We are us. We don’t have anyone over, so instead we are us.”

“That sounded_ really _ cliche, Caleb.” 

“It did, but still it is true.” 

“How come you invited someone over ? Also why’d you hire me ?”

“You haven’t answered _ my _ questions.”

What did he want to hear ? That she was a bad daughter ? Or that her life had been ruined by the greasiest man she’d ever met ? Or that she’d been over her head at every turn ?

“Sharpe is all hung up because I was in this low life medic tent when the Dynasty invaded the coast.”

Caleb’s eyes grew wide, “You served ?”

“I didn’t fight anybody, so instead I was definitely the best person on staff with medicine.” She bragged, feeling the words like chalk on her tongue. He couldn’t see her swallow the feelings, the clutter of knives and scalpels. The worst was the smell, her mother had tried covering her in every perfume possible. It didn’t fade. 

“Why ? Why would you do that ?” She could hear his horror, his confusion written all over his face. 

“What ? You don’t think I’m smart enough to be a nurse ?” 

“You were affluent enough that it could have passed over you.” 

“Like you let it ?”

For the first time he appeared offended, genuinely angry. It passed though, and was replaced with a stronger emotion: sadness. 

"_Schatten können eine lange Strecke zurücklegen. _” Caleb didn’t elaborate, it was meant for himself as he whispered it under his breath. It was Zemnian, his accent that fumbled with Common tongues sounded succinct in his own language. Beautiful maybe. 

“_Tu stultus es.” _Jester stuck her tongue out at him, she could play that game too. To her frustration, his face was blank and stiff.

“You did it to impress them.” Caleb guessed and Jester shivered. He sounded so sure, and he was partially right. He opened the gate to _ Blumenthal, _Nott was waiting at the entrance with a lantern in hand. 

The little goblin threw herself around Jester’s legs as a hug. She’d gotten it into her head that Jester had left because she’d been too harsh. 

Herr Widogast slinked away during their ‘reunion’. Nott looked at him gratefully, and a little shocked, as he turned the corner into the tomb of the home. 

That night, Jester found that during their trek through the woods, blue flowers had gotten caught across the knees of her stockings. She’d walked through a patch of them without even noticing. 

\---------------------------------------------------------

_The Man From Rexxentrum_

Nott bit into her nails, making small noises of discontent and pacing back and forth. Jester had watched her swallow nervously when the too bright, gaudy carriage from Rexxentrum had arrived in front of the gate. 

“The house looks nice, right ? Right, it looks great. It looks wonderful, and you did a fantastic job polishing the silver.” Nott had said and Jester had nodded along. The house looked...Well, it looked its part. _ Blumenthal _the crypt that held the nervous goblin and the strange lanky red haired man.

And now Jester Lavorre, who’d broken many rules and somehow remained employed. 

They’d watched the passenger leave the carriage, an older man with long white hair and jaundiced face. He’d stepped forth from the painting Jester had seen, a figment that has escaped the mansion and now returned for an unknown purpose.She remembered the image of his ringed hand gripping Caleb’s shoulder, and was grateful when the man didn’t so much as look at her or Nott. 

Now Jester and Nott sat at their respective posts in the lower kitchens, Nott ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ at a bottle of wine that she was about to uncork for the both of them, putting on extra airs to cover the mood. Jester drummed her fingers at the table, two blue flowers were folded in a sheet of paper in the safety of her apron pocket. 

“Caleb’s mentor will be gone by dinner ?” Jester was asking, moreso hoping really. 

Nott wrinkled her nose, her ears stood on end, “We can hope.”

The man hadn’t looked at them, and so he hadn’t seen the evident hatred written all over Nott’s face. The man also hadn’t been privy to Nott’s mood all of Thursday evening, twisting her skirt and snapping at Jester to not stare at her. 

As the date for the older man’s arrival neared, Nott had become frazzled. 

Jester heard Nott yelling at Caleb the night prior--no--_ begging _ at him. Herr Widogast had been good at hiding up until now, his time in the library and finding Jester in the woods had dispelled whatever tricks he’d used to be more ghost than man. 

He’d been painfully real and present, a nervous human being. Not a lord, not the owner of an esteemed estate. 

Jester touched one of her horns, rubbing the ridges of keratin absentmindedly.

“Nott ?” 

Nott didn’t respond and stared at the floor. 

“Nott ?”

“Hm ?” She didn’t look up. 

“He won’t, like, do anything to him ?” Lord Sharpe had once suggested Jester should be disciplined more. 

“No.” 

_ Lying. _

Jester took a chance, “We could make sure nothing happens if we listen through the door ?”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“Yeah, because we’ll be watching and we’ll bust down the door if it does.”

Nott shook her head, “You make it sound easy.”

“It is. And you really, really care about Caleb and he’d want to know you have his back.”

Nott narrowed her eyes and gave Jester a once over.

“Fine, but we won’t understand half of what's going on.” 

Jester didn’t ask what that meant. She would soon discover for herself by sticking her ear against the heavy oaked door.

“_Ich kann Ihnen sagen, dass Sie die Bibliothek am meisten benutzt haben_.” The mentor sounded bored. Even in Zemnian gibberish, Jester could hear the differences in their accents. Caleb put emphasis on different letters and vowels than this man.

Jester put her eye to the keyhole, Nott silently fighting with her to also get a glimpse.

Caleb cleared his throat, “_Du warst großzügig.” _

He was supplicant. Jester assumed he was thanking his mentor ? Maybe complimenting him. 

Jester caught the mentor roll his eyes and Caleb fight to remain sitting up straight. She decided she was going to hate this other man. 

_ “Ich kann nicht verstehen, was du davon bekommst, dieser Kreatur zu helfen. Sie war unhöflich. Grobheit hat Konsequenzen.” _The mentor raised a glass of tea to his lips, lazily and unconcerned. 

Caleb sat stiffly. He’d been human to Jester already, and now she was seeing him laid low. Through the keyhole she could almost see him shaking. 

“I wish we could go in.” Jester whispered to Nott.

“He thought the library would help with seeing him, home turf and all.”

Jester realized that might have been why he introduced himself there, the library being a neutral ground for Caleb. 

“_Ich würde nicht fragen, ob es unwichtig ist.” _ Caleb’s voice shook, a plea coming out quickly. Jester had heard men like that beg in the tent, “ _ I wanna go home. Please, please, let me go home.” _

_ “Was würde ich davon bekommen, das kleine Biest von ihrem Fluch zu befreien?” _

“_Alles.” _Caleb’s voice was firmer than before, it sounded like a death sentence to Jester. 

Caleb’s mentor, smug and swirling his teacup around, finally said a word Jester could understand, “No.”

“No ?” Caleb repeated, at a loss for anything else. Nott and Jester’s breathing behind the door sounded deafening. 

“_Wie lange kannst du dieses Formular behalten ?” _ The man from Rexxentrum asked another question and Caleb looked towards the ground. “ _ Genau. Und jetzt kommst du zu mir zu weinen. Dies ist selbst für Sie herabgesetzt.” _

For a second time Caleb’s voice didn’t waver, but instead quickened. He made another bold comment, “_ Es ist nicht für mich ! Nott war falsch, aber sie verdient Gnade !” _

Jester and Nott both heard it, he’d said something about Nott passionately enough that the man from Rexxentrum sneered. Typical, Jester thought. These men hate when you raise your voice. 

And a familiar anger had Jester shaking. 

They hadn’t locked the library, Jester heard Nott grab for her skirt to pull her back. _ Too late. _

Caleb almost jumped out of his seat when she entered. 

“Herr Widogast there’s an urgent matter for you in the-” where would be a good place ? anywhere but with the man from Rexxentrum sitting across from him. “-uh, dining room ?”

The guest raised an eyebrow, calculating and amused. 

_ This was a bad idea. _

A beat passed. It was up to Caleb now. 

“Ah, yes. Of course. Of course. Go and get Nott- go and get Miss Nott. Thank you, Miss Vasiliev. If you'll excuse me, Lord Ikithon.” Caleb looked to Jester with enough relief in his eyes to make her feel like she’d won. 

The mentor now had a name, Ikithon. Jester looked back at him as Caleb followed her out of the library. The man from Rexxentrum looked at her not with a glare, but an interested stare. A look that could turn someone to salt and stone. 

\--------------------------------------------------

_The Price Of Blue Flowers_

“What was that ?!” Caleb was pacing back and forth in the dining hall. Nott cleared her throat suddenly. He softened and turned from Jester to look at her. “You said you’d both stay behind.”

Nott’s ears drooped, “You don’t have to do this.”

It seemed that Nott had pieced together more of the conversation than Jester had. 

Caleb sighed, “Please let me have a word with Jester.” 

Nott reluctantly stepped out, leaving Jester with Caleb as he took a seat at one of the many empty chairs at the two long table. He rested his head in his hands; in the Chateau if a server saw him they would offer him something to smoke or something to drink. 

Caleb had escorted Ikithon back to his carriage shortly after Jester had lead him away. She’d been an audience to Caleb dry heaving in the corner, mumbling, and rubbing his arms quickly. He’d entirely come undone at the strings the second she’d gotten him out of the room. 

From the second story window she had watched Ikithon smile, say a last damning thing to Caleb, and leave as quickly as he’d arrived. The old man had gotten off at watching Caleb flinch, beg, fail the negotiation entirely. Jester had a feeling it was the main reason the man had come in the first place. If only the house hadn’t reflected Caleb, maybe they could have beaten him. 

Jester’s nose scrunched, “Nott’s probably waiting outside the door listening to us.”

“Indeed she is, no doubt.” 

“I’m not sorry for what I did.” She could argue to herself that she had stepped in with her flimsy rescue as a means of repaying him for finding her in the forest. The truth was she might have done that for anyone. She’d wished many times that someone had stepped in while Sharpe belittled her behind closed doors. 

Her mama had done her best, but her best hadn’t kept Jester from having the fantasy where someone would burst into the room and say enough was enough. 

“I can tell.” Caleb paused and then pulled out a chair next to him. “He wasn’t fooled. I’m practically licking my wounds.”

Jester took the seat, “Then don’t do whatever you think you have to do.”

“You are very brave.”

Jester flexed her arm, “Yeah, I am.”

He smiled at this, “_ Ja _, and reckless when it comes to the nobility in this country.”

“Why were you talking about Nott ?” Jester whispered this, a bad attempt at secrecy if Nott was listening to them. 

“I don’t think you’ll believe me.” He ran a hand through his hair. 

“I already think you’re a weirdo; trust me, the bar is low.” 

“You work to shift the mood in your favor, don’t you ?”

It was true. Her mother had the ability to read, sway, and rule the mood of any room she walked into. It made sense that some of that should have rubbed into Jester’s dialogue. “And you’re- You’re crazy and sick from a fake disease.”

“I won’t share Nott’s entire story; it is not my place to do so. If we’re clear--I really have no clue why I’m telling you. It was foolish to hire someone for this position, more so than I anticipated, but I wanted to make it work. I promise I did-” He was rambling. Trying to find a good thread to start with. “My father, when he was young, was confident and loyal. He was a good man. Had high expectations of me when I was born. His name was Leofric.”

Jester realized his affectionate tone was rare. Most men learned to loathe their fathers, the idolization peeling off of them as they grew. Caleb held steadfast to his. Jester hadn’t met her real father yet. She wondered if she had, if she’d feel the same as Caleb. 

“In in his youth he, he wanted to marry a woman who was sick. She was sure she wasn’t going to live very long. You don’t when the fever makes its way through a small village. Her name was Una. She asked him to pick her flowers from an estate on a hill, overlooking a moor and a wood of gnarled trees. He’d always been loyal, of course he hesitated. His love out won the loyalty.”

Jester thought it all sounded bitterly like a fairytale. Next came the consequences. 

“The man who owned it then, Ikithon, he of course was offended. He values humbleness above all else in his subjects. Everything that belongs to him, belongs to him. He did not see the same sentimentality my father did. So when Una got better, there was to be retribution.”

“For flowers ?!”

“Yes, but-”

“That’s stupid. There are blue flowers everywhere !”

Caleb looked to the ground again. He collected himself, like Jester’s words had reached him but had delivered something too painful. “Their child was to be cursed. Stuck between sentimentality and loyalty-- and monstrous.” 

Jester touched her horns

Caleb continued, “Superstition is a powerful thing, but Una and Leofric were--above that. They wanted me to be happy. They were very good to me, despite everything. During the first Xhorhassian invasion, the village happened to be caught in the crossfires. In the end, the Empire did the most damage to it, trying to smoke them out…Our own side cared less than the opposition…”

“That’s not your fault.” She could tell he believed it was. In the back of her mind, next to the things she had tried to forget, were the boxes of memories in the medic tent. If she had been faster, or smarter, or less of herself could more have been saved. 

“I know that.” She could tell he was lying. “I survived. Ikithon took me in. I think he wanted to keep me close as insurance for something, but I--” Caleb was moving his hands quickly. “I never figured out what. His curse...manifested in strange ways. I become, I become other--I learned to try and choose what I wanted to be, but I don’t always get the option. It has been harder and harder in the last year. Trent has me kept here, and in truth it keeps out the other villagers, yet- I’m sorry, I know this is wild.” Jester took a risk, she reached out and tapped his shoulder three times. In the same way the eagle had. Caleb smiled guiltily, “When the clock strikes six...I usually get a small window to choose the form, the animal...If I don’t uh- There are repercussions. You almost saw me...that night I saw you in the woods. It was like I woke up around you... I hurried away after I placed you with Nott, I wasn't sure how long I could keep it together.”

“So Nott also turns into animals ?” Jester had read of magic, its leave from the world, and the few who had it or the places it resided. No ghosts were in _ Blumenthal_; the cursed were instead housed here.

“Her’s is more specific in nature.”

“Did she steal flowers too ?”

“No, no, she--” Caleb shook his head. “She was too liberal with her words around Trent when she found out about me…”

It wasn't right. 

Jester took both his hands, ignoring the way Caleb jumped in surprise, “I’m going to help !”

He paled and looked away, but did not pull his hands out of her’s, “I’m giving you a way out. You should take it.”

“And go where ? Caleb, where else would Sharpe not ruin my life.”

“You shouldn’t have to make such choices.”

She squeezed his hands, “It’s too late. I want to help.” 

The same irrational urge to be of use, to be present, to run towards the very thing everyone fled from--that was why she’d gone to work for the medics. It’s why she’d stood up to Sharpe. Was she sad she lost her home ? Yes, but she wasn’t sorry and she wouldn’t take it back. 

Jester had effectively robbed him of words, he nodded once and mustered out a small response, “Nott of course will be pleased.”

"And you ? What about you, Cayleb ?"

"Perhaps."

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(Art was done by the fantastic bucket-of-kittens.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to bucket-of-kittens, this was a fun collaboration.


End file.
